I have been living in Thailand since 1989. I have traveled extensively throughout the Kingdom and wanted to share my wonderful experiences of Thailand with others. I talked with many travelers here in Thailand and saw a need to take visitors away from the normal tourist areas filled with large tour buses and groups. The biggest complaint I heard from visitors is "there is no real Thai culture". "Everything is staged for the tourists". This is because they keep following each other around using their guide books.

I lived in a remote area of north Thailand at Wat Thaton temple in the town of Thaton on the Burmese border for more than 3 years. I taught English to Monks, novices, high school students, the Thai Army, local and tourist police. I also did hill tribe programs by taking a small number of tourists to hill tribe villages to spend the evening. All the money for the trek went to the villagers. I bought clothes for the children, medicines and blankets for the families. I paid the villagers to build a bamboo schoolhouse and paid a teacher to teach Thai at the school who could speak their language. I taught them how to dispose of waste properly, keep the children and village clean and to use spoons instead of their fingers when eating which was a big source of their health problems. I provided seeds and Logan and lychee fruit trees for planting.

This was fine until I left the temple then the school stopped and the health problems returned.
I talked with the Abbot of the temple and he now has a school for the children at the temple. He has a nurse looking after the children and takes those to the clinics that have problems.

While I was there I help start a guest home where travelers could stay in a Lisu hill tribe village and go trekking in the jungle and visit primitive hill tribe villages in the area. This was not easy, as the villages we visited didn't want visitors as they wanted to maintain their lifestyle and culture. They have seen other villages who accept tourist turn into a village without harmony and lost their culture. These villagers were farmers and didn't want to look at tourism as a source of income. I understood the problem as I have seen what a tour operator can do to a village. To them money is first and they don't care about the hill tribe people or their way of life.

I stayed in these villages and met with the village headmen many times. I learned about their culture, way of life, religion, and do's and don'ts.

Nothing is allowed to be given to a villager directly by the visitor. No candy for the children and no photographs without permission. No money is allowed to be given for a photograph. The guide must be from the local area and must also be hill tribe and speak the language of the village.

I then trained 3 hill tribe men from the local area who speak English to be guides. None of these men drink or smoke and their families are very well respected by all the villages. That was 10 years ago and everything is still going very well.

For the Jungle portion of the trek I had to teach the guides to use a different trails so it could grow back. They make a hut out of bamboo and banana leaves for sleeping and I taught them not to clear cut and not to return to an area for at least two months. No more hunting of birds or wild animals.

When we want to help the poor villagers that we visit. We go to a market here in Chiangmai to buy shirts and pants for the children before we visit.
We have had groups including one from Singapore who stayed at 3 different hill tribe villages. They brought medicines, blankets and clothes. They repaired playground equipment and repainted the school.
We buy clothes and blankets every year when cold season arrives to give to needy villagers.
We helped a Lisu Hill Tribe man who has the guest home get started and now has a very successful business. He handles all our treks for us along with other guides and porters he has hired. He used to get only 50 baht per day per group and now gets more than 1800 baht per person for taking our clients.
We have a loving relationship with all the people that work with us and those we visit. To us they are family
There are certain places we will not visit. The main one being to see the Paduang Long Neck Karen. This is one of the worst forms of tourism in Thailand. Any tour operator who does this tour has no consideration for the culture or the Karen People. Here is the real story.
The original custom is that only a girl born on a Wednesday during a full moon could where the rings around her neck. Now because of the large number of tourists visiting these villages all the girls are wearing the rings as it is big money. A Photograph of 1 girls is as much as 500 baht.
Not only that but the villagers are kept in a compound surrounded by high walls so no one can see in. They are not allowed out of the camp so everyone just sits around waiting for the tourists. It costs at least 250 baht to get into the village which most goes to the tour operator.
Villagers have died in these compounds. These people deserve more than this. Here is a short article from the Nation newspaper on the seriousness of the problem.
MAE HONG SON- A provincial court in Mae Hong Son yesterday opened the trial of two Thai men on charges relating to the detention and death of a
long necked ethnic Padaung women, who, along with over 30 others of the same ethnicity ,was trafficked into Thailand from Burma two years ago.
Paduang- commonly known here as the long-necked hill people because the women normally wear brass necklaces,the number of which increases over the years-has been a strong tourist attraction in Mae Hong Son.
The group of detained Padaung had been lured and trafficked from their home village in northeastern Burma into Thailand by a Thai Karen agent, who had pledged to take them to visit their relatives in Mae Hong Son.
According to the rescued Padaung, the woman, a mother of two, died in mid-1997 of exhaustion and heartbreak as she had been long separated from her children who remained in Burma.
Please boycott any agency that wants to take you to see the Paduang Long Neck Karen.

I have talked with tour operators and the Tourism Authority of Thailand about being responsible in maintaining hill tribe culture. No one seams to care, as money is the bottom line. Exploitation of the hill tribe people and their way of life are common here.

I have been able to give lectures at guide classes for the TAT. I try to teach them about being responsible for maintaining the hill tribe culture.
After all it is the guides who are in contact with the villagers and clients not the tour operators.

Please feel free to send me any questions you may have about travel in Thailand.